Further Reading

Back in April, when Nintendo discontinued the hot ticket NES Classic Edition after just six months on the market, it prompted us to suggest in a headline that "Nintendo hates money." Someone at Nintendo must have figured out that money is good, though, because Nintendo announced this morning that the $60 plug-and-play retro console will be coming back to retailers "next summer."

Nintendo promised more details in the future and didn't provide any explanation as to why we'll have to wait through an entire fall, winter, and spring before more NES Classic units are available. Component shortages seem to be a likely culprit, though; Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé recently told the Financial Times about the "challenge" of managing a complex global supply chain, especially when it comes to bottlenecks on multiple Switch components.

With the pending Super NES Classic Edition likely using similar components to the NES Classic, producing both systems at once could complicate that supply chain even further. As Fils-Aimé put it to Time after the NES Classic's initial discontinuation, "We've got a lot going on right now and we don't have unlimited resources."

As for the Super NES Classic Edition, Nintendo for the first time today committed to producing the system "into 2018," rather than cutting off units at the end of the calendar year as previously announced. The company promised that the September 29 launch would see more units of the Super NES Classic than the NES Classic saw "all last year, with subsequent shipments arriving in stores regularly."

For context, the NES Classic sold 1.5 million units through January of 2017, and the bulk of those systems likely shipped before the end of 2016. That means we could easily see more than a million Super NES Classic units on store shelves on day one, a launch that would rival the likes of the Xbox One and the PS4. That probably won't be enough to fully satisfy what Nintendo acknowledges is "unbridled enthusiasm for these Classic Edition systems," but it at least provides people with a better chance of finding one on store shelves at a local retailer.

Further Reading

Speaking to FT last week, Fils-Aimé had promised a "dramatic increase" in Super NES Classic production, and he tried to tamp down a feeding frenzy among secondhand resellers. "I would strongly urge you not to over-bid on an SNES Classic on any of the auction sites," Fils-Aimé told the paper. "You shouldn't [have to] pay more than $79.99."

Reading between the lines, it seems plausible that Nintendo will crank out as many Super NES Classic Editions as it can through next spring, at which point it will start to wind things down to ramp up production facilities toward the summer relaunch of the NES Classic. Regardless of the specifics, Nintendo's public stance suggests the company has finally fully accepted the huge interest in its Classic system line and is reconfiguring its resources to help satisfy that interest.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

I wouldn't expect the rerelease of the NES classic to come in at $60 next summer. If Nintendo really likes money, they'll crank up the production, but they'll also crank up the price to be on par with the SNES Classic.

I wish Sega would make a halfway-decent retro box. The early Genesis Flashback reviews say it's horrible. AtGames claims to be making improvements for the actual release, but we'll see.

it might be disappointing to those who paid high eBay markups or invested in pricey ThinkGeek bundles to get their hands on the system

I got my Switch on preorder. I paid more than people buying it now. I paid a lot more than people in the US, because of the import pricing here in Chile. I'm still happy with my purchase. I got to play Zelda before a lot of people, I get a lot of enjoyment from the system, and that has value.

You wouldn't think it would be all that hard... after all, most companies have the *opposite* problem.

Nintendo has not been making tons of money. The Wii U was a disaster, financially speaking, and I'm sure they don't want to take the chance of having a ton of stock sitting on shelves. Of course, the products that people actually want are the ones they under-produce.

I wouldn't expect the rerelease of the NES classic to come in at $60 next summer. If Nintendo really likes money, they'll crank up the production, but they'll also crank up the price to be on par with the SNES Classic.

I wish Sega would make a halfway-decent retro box. The early Genesis Flashback reviews say it's horrible. AtGames claims to be making improvements for the actual release, but we'll see.

To be fair, the SNES Classic comes with two controllers rather than one, which could help explain at least part of the $60 to $80 price jump.

So Christmas is reserved for the Super Nintendo, then switch back onto the regular to pick up the summer slack? I'm all for it if Nintendo intends to do a Disney here and keep a constant production line, merely moving things into and out of the vault — at least if the alternative is single production runs.

Actually Nintendo never said the SNES Classic would be discontinued at the end of the year. They simply only committed to producing it until the end of the year and didn't commit either way to what would happen afterwards.

A SNES with an e-store would actually bring them tons of money. People buying those are obviously not interested in pirating games, have disposable income and are Nintendo nostalgic. I myself fit only partially into those categories and I am not to sure I want to collect a piece of kit which will likely collect dust a few weeks after the initial purchase, as tempting as the lovely hardware is.

I wouldn't expect the rerelease of the NES classic to come in at $60 next summer. If Nintendo really likes money, they'll crank up the production, but they'll also crank up the price to be on par with the SNES Classic.

I wish Sega would make a halfway-decent retro box. The early Genesis Flashback reviews say it's horrible. AtGames claims to be making improvements for the actual release, but we'll see.

To be fair, the SNES Classic comes with two controllers rather than one, which could help explain at least part of the $60 to $80 price jump.

I think it also comes with a power cable that wasn't included in the NES classic? Though that may have just been the european version.

I wouldn't expect the rerelease of the NES classic to come in at $60 next summer. If Nintendo really likes money, they'll crank up the production, but they'll also crank up the price to be on par with the SNES Classic.

I wish Sega would make a halfway-decent retro box. The early Genesis Flashback reviews say it's horrible. AtGames claims to be making improvements for the actual release, but we'll see.

To be fair, the SNES Classic comes with two controllers rather than one, which could help explain at least part of the $60 to $80 price jump.

I think it also comes with a power cable that wasn't included in the NES classic? Though that may have just been the european version.

Finally shipping Star Fox 2 is worth something too. I think the next NES Classic will have to step it up

A SNES with an e-store would actually bring them tons of money. People buying those are obviously not interested in pirating games, have disposable income and are Nintendo nostalgic. I myself fit only partially into those categories and I am not to sure I want to collect a piece of kit which will likely collect dust a few weeks after the initial purchase, as tempting as the lovely hardware is.

Frankly if they just remastered a lot of these games to scale to HD resolutions and released them in ANY format they'd sell like candy to a...guy who really likes candy.

Actually Nintendo never said the SNES Classic would be discontinued at the end of the year. They simply only committed to producing it until the end of the year and didn't commit either way to what would happen afterwards.

"Due to incredible demand for the upcoming Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition system, Nintendo plans to ship the retro-inspired product into 2018. Originally, shipments were announced to cease at the end of this calendar year."

A SNES with an e-store would actually bring them tons of money. People buying those are obviously not interested in pirating games, have disposable income and are Nintendo nostalgic. I myself fit only partially into those categories and I am not to sure I want to collect a piece of kit which will likely collect dust a few weeks after the initial purchase, as tempting as the lovely hardware is.

Maybe, maybe not. Making an online store for the Classic consoles would add a lot to the production costs, both from a hardware and a server/software/support standpoint. I'm not sure the market for purchasing old games one by one is big enough to justify that extra cost. If anything, Nintendo has data from the Wii/Wii U virtual console that would tell them if it was really a lucrative market (and the fact that the Virtual Console has been so neglected suggests it might not be).

Plus a lot of the appeal of the systems is that you don't have to worry about any WiFi configuration or a la carte purchases -- just buy it and plug it in and you're ready to play.

I wouldn't expect the rerelease of the NES classic to come in at $60 next summer. If Nintendo really likes money, they'll crank up the production, but they'll also crank up the price to be on par with the SNES Classic.

I wish Sega would make a halfway-decent retro box. The early Genesis Flashback reviews say it's horrible. AtGames claims to be making improvements for the actual release, but we'll see.

To be fair, the SNES Classic comes with two controllers rather than one, which could help explain at least part of the $60 to $80 price jump.

I think it also comes with a power cable that wasn't included in the NES classic? Though that may have just been the european version.

Actually Nintendo never said the SNES Classic would be discontinued at the end of the year. They simply only committed to producing it until the end of the year and didn't commit either way to what would happen afterwards.

"Due to incredible demand for the upcoming Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition system, Nintendo plans to ship the retro-inspired product into 2018. Originally, shipments were announced to cease at the end of this calendar year."

On the flip side, a paragraph you quoted from a Polygon article you linked in your own article about the announcement:

"Nintendo told Polygon that it is currently planning to manufacture the SNES Classic “from Sept. 29 until the end of calendar year 2017.” That doesn’t necessarily mean Nintendo will end production at that point, but the company added, “At this time, we have nothing to announce regarding any possible shipments beyond this year.”"

I wouldn't expect the rerelease of the NES classic to come in at $60 next summer. If Nintendo really likes money, they'll crank up the production, but they'll also crank up the price to be on par with the SNES Classic.

I wish Sega would make a halfway-decent retro box. The early Genesis Flashback reviews say it's horrible. AtGames claims to be making improvements for the actual release, but we'll see.

To be fair, the SNES Classic comes with two controllers rather than one, which could help explain at least part of the $60 to $80 price jump.

Except the Japanese version of the NES Classic, the Famicom Mini, came with two controllers (one with a microphone) and was being sold for roughly the same price. SNES controllers do have more parts, but that should barely affect the price. I think ultimately the higher cost is shrewd business and nothing more.

The optimist in me hopes that this will be a "Gen 2" version that fixes some shortcomings of the first model:

1) Longer controller cords2) Have some kind of key combo to press on the controller to get back to the menu w/ pressing Reset3) Make more than 10 of them.

But the pessimist in me reminds me that we are all doomed to die and the universe itself will suffer heat death, but long after our sun goes supernova and we couldn't escape because you just simply can't break the speed of light - oh and btw you'll never get an NES classic.

Actually Nintendo never said the SNES Classic would be discontinued at the end of the year. They simply only committed to producing it until the end of the year and didn't commit either way to what would happen afterwards.

"Due to incredible demand for the upcoming Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition system, Nintendo plans to ship the retro-inspired product into 2018. Originally, shipments were announced to cease at the end of this calendar year."

On the flip side, a paragraph you quoted from a Polygon article you linked in your own article about the announcement:

"Nintendo told Polygon that it is currently planning to manufacture the SNES Classic “from Sept. 29 until the end of calendar year 2017.” That doesn’t necessarily mean Nintendo will end production at that point, but the company added, “At this time, we have nothing to announce regarding any possible shipments beyond this year.”"

Seems like Nintendo was being deliberately vague and leaving their options open.

Hmmm, yeah, a close reading suggest Nintendo is retconning its previous position from "no announcement" to "announced to end at the end of 2017." Maybe they're just revealing that they never really had any plans for 2018 production before now, though...

A SNES with an e-store would actually bring them tons of money. People buying those are obviously not interested in pirating games, have disposable income and are Nintendo nostalgic. I myself fit only partially into those categories and I am not to sure I want to collect a piece of kit which will likely collect dust a few weeks after the initial purchase, as tempting as the lovely hardware is.

I was going to post a response like this, but you beat me to it.

Nintendo would also have to do a lot more licensing work to get more titles to sell on the eStore, basically starting over again, since likely the Wii/WiiU Virtual Console contracts don't cover a different device. Also, Nintendo would have to do a lot more Q&A for each title they add to it to make sure it runs properly (or at least "well enough") on the device.

Another thing is that if the SNES Classic came with 20 pre-installed titles, but had an e-store option to purchase more, suddenly those 20 pre-installed games become a problem. People would bitch about having to pay more for the games they want, instead some of the pre-installed titles they don't like. Some would demand that there be no pre-installed games at all, instead wanting the console to be cheaper so they could add titles al la carte. Others would bitch that not all SNES titles are available, even though it'd be due to licensing issues with various publishers. And then what about space? If there's limited space on the console, should the pre-installed games be deletable to make room for downloads? What about if you later change your mind or want to reset and sell the device?

It's just a lot more complexity, for possibly not a lot more money, and an added PR headache.

I was initially stoked about the NES Classic, but to me it's underwhelming for the price; $20-30 for an RPi-level board, a few bucks in plastic, a perhaps $10 controller, and a locked game selection for $60? Meh.

Actually Nintendo never said the SNES Classic would be discontinued at the end of the year. They simply only committed to producing it until the end of the year and didn't commit either way to what would happen afterwards.

"Due to incredible demand for the upcoming Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition system, Nintendo plans to ship the retro-inspired product into 2018. Originally, shipments were announced to cease at the end of this calendar year."

On the flip side, a paragraph you quoted from a Polygon article you linked in your own article about the announcement:

"Nintendo told Polygon that it is currently planning to manufacture the SNES Classic “from Sept. 29 until the end of calendar year 2017.” That doesn’t necessarily mean Nintendo will end production at that point, but the company added, “At this time, we have nothing to announce regarding any possible shipments beyond this year.”"

Seems like Nintendo was being deliberately vague and leaving their options open.

Hmmm, yeah, a close reading suggest Nintendo is retconning its previous position from "no announcement" to "announced to end at the end of 2017." Maybe they're just revealing that they never really had any plans for 2018 production before now, though...

My guess is they had no formal plans but lots of options and seeing how the preorders have gone has led them to finally commit to the "make more for longer" direction.

You wouldn't think it would be all that hard... after all, most companies have the *opposite* problem.

Nintendo has not been making tons of money. The Wii U was a disaster, financially speaking, and I'm sure they don't want to take the chance of having a ton of stock sitting on shelves. Of course, the products that people actually want are the ones they under-produce.

Selling a high demand product is such a no brainer. Also, how could they not know that ppl would absolutely love a retro style mini nes and snes? They need to do some polls or something with their fans because it's just so obvious. They would easily make another killing if they popped a nes and snes bundle onto the switch for download. Millions would buy that in a heartbeat. As a Nintendo stockholder, I love them but sometimes I just don't know whats going on in their heads.

What a lot of people probably don't realize is that Nintendo is probably not manufacturing these units themselves, but are contracting it to third parties. Without knowing the demand, Nintendo probably just contracted X number of units for the original run. By the time these units actually came to market and Nintendo saw the demand, it may have been too late to alter the manufacturing contract. The contractor may have already contracted their line(s) for another use. In which case, Nintendo either has to find another contractor (as well as have molds recast, etc.) or wait until the contractor's lines became available again. And this is just with the final assembly. This same concern goes all the way down the food chain for the individual components.

I used to work for a company that looked to have a specialized device manufactured. It's not that easy lining up components and final assembly. It takes at least six (6) months to over a year before stuff starts coming off the final assembly line.

I was initially stoked about the NES Classic, but to me it's underwhelming for the price; $20-30 for an RPi-level board, a few bucks in plastic, a perhaps $10 controller, and a locked game selection for $60? Meh.

So you're complaining about paying $30 for someone to assemble it for you and provide 20 licensed games?

Ya right bullshit. If you really wanted to keep selling them you wouldn't have ever stopped production.

Those aren't mutually exclusive statements. While Nintendo surely could have continued producing the NES Classic in its original run, that would have required many change requests to its contracts with parts suppliers, factory owners, shippers, distributors and retailers. They likely determined that the increased costs of all these changes made last minute did not justify doing that. Going back, signing new contracts with longer lead times before a second run would reduce their cost.

On the flip side, a paragraph you quoted from a Polygon article you linked in your own article about the announcement:

"Nintendo told Polygon that it is currently planning to manufacture the SNES Classic “from Sept. 29 until the end of calendar year 2017.” That doesn’t necessarily mean Nintendo will end production at that point, but the company added, “At this time, we have nothing to announce regarding any possible shipments beyond this year.”"